The top Biglaw recession indicator, stealth layoffs, may have arrived! Paul, Weiss has parted ways with an unknown number of associates and multiple insiders describe the move as an instance of stealth layoffs in the firm’s litigation department. The accounts from those reportedly let go should sound awfully familiar to anyone who’s been following this beat.
For the uninitiated: stealth layoffs are a Biglaw specialty. Rather than announce economically motivated headcount reductions, firms quietly push associates out the door using performance reviews as cover — reviews that, coincidentally, turn suddenly negative right when business slows down. The associates let go frequently have no prior history of negative feedback. It’s a toxic business practice placing the blame on the attorneys themselves, rather than acknowledging the economic reality driving the decision.
On Reddit, the Paul, Weiss tipsters are unambiguous about what’s happening:
“To those saying it’s unsubstantiated: it happened to me. Since the firm doesn’t exactly announce you’ve been let go, it’s hard to know how many people this has affected. But the other comment here saying that they do it by giving you bogus negative performance reviews that are uncorroborated by the actual teams you work with is exactly what happened to me. When I asked what the actual problem with my performance was, all I got was the vaguest ‘feedback’ ever about attention to detail or something like that (mind you, I had only ever gotten positive feedback, and never had any complaints before about my attention to detail). I immediately clocked that the firm was making up a performance reason for what is essentially a layoff due to persistent slowness in the litigation dept. This suggested to me that this was probably happening across the department rather than anything to do with me.”
A second source echoes this assessment:
“Laid off PW assoc here — can confirm. They’re doing it as bogus performance-based sendoffs — bogus because most affected folks are getting negative feedback in the annual review that none of the individual teams are corroborating. And it’s happened to many of us. The party line at P,W has consistently been ‘oh we would never do layoffs. Didn’t do it during the 2008 recession, didn’t do it during the 2022 Biglaw layoffs, and certainly not now.’ But I’ve learned the hard way that they do plenty of stealth layoffs.”
That boast — that Paul, Weiss doesn’t do layoffs, not even during downturns — is a particularly bitter pill, because it’s been used to burnish the firm’s reputation as a good place to work. And now, multiple associates say they’ve been handed suddenly invented performance problems by a firm that is manifestly dealing with something much bigger than their attention to detail.
We reached out to Paul, Weiss for comment, and a spokesperson provided the following statement: “There were no layoffs. These were performance-based decisions based on the review process we conduct every year.”
That response is, word for word, the stealth layoff script. Repackaging economic cuts as performance decisions, all while insisting no layoffs occurred, is how a stealth layoff works. It’s of course possible for a firm to part ways with an associate for “performance-based” reasons. But the language of the firm statement — speaking in plurals — suggests a broader swath than terminating a perpetual underperformer. Add in insider accounts describing associates with clean records, whose teams never flagged a problem, and suddenly negative annual reviews, and everything sure sounds like a stealth layoff.
While most stealth layoffs are nakedly cynical, some firms might genuinely delude themselves into thinking they’re just making performance cuts. Except, if the firm is honest with itself, the associates involved never did anything that would merit termination until the business environment changed. Tiny shortcomings, the natural byproduct of a lawyer-in-training, get magnified into unforgivable sins — for the first time in their whole career — just as the firm needs to cut headcount.
To understand why the litigation department would be slow right now, you have to understand what has happened to Paul, Weiss over the past year. In March 2025, the firm became the first — and most infamous — Biglaw shop to cut a deal with the Trump administration, surrendering $40 million in pro bono services and its DEI programs to get out from under an executive order targeting the firm. The fallout, which we’ve documented extensively, has been severe — and nowhere more than in litigation.
Litigation co-chair Karen Dunn, along with partners Bill Isaacson, Jeannie Rhee, and Jessica Phillips, bolted to start their own boutique free from the constraints of the Trump deal. Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams departed for Jenner & Block — a firm actually fighting the executive orders in court. Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson retired after 40 years at the firm. And most recently, Kannon Shanmugam — one of the most accomplished Supreme Court advocates in private practice — left for Davis Polk.
That’s a bunch of litigation talent walking out the door. And when the partners leave, the work tends to follow. Which means fewer matters to staff, fewer hours to bill, and a department carrying more associates than it now has work to sustain. The associates absorbing that slowdown aren’t the ones who made the decisions that caused it, but they will be the ones paying the price.
Which brings us back to those suddenly vague performance reviews.
The structural reality at Paul, Weiss makes all of this entirely predictable. New chair Scott Barshay — an M&A heavyweight who was reportedly a major internal champion of the Trump deal — has been steadily remaking the firm in a transactional image. Associate staffing is now more tightly controlled. The firm’s identity has shifted from “litigation powerhouse with a conscience” to “M&A juggernaut with a carefully managed personality.” As a former Paul, Weiss attorney told the American Lawyer when Barshay took the reins: “The litigators have never been led by a corporate partner. Will the litigation team have an issue with the firm becoming really a corporate shop with a litigation arm, rather than the other way?”
A litigation department hemorrhaging partner talent, led by a firm chair whose future seems transactional, is exactly the environment where you’d expect stealth layoffs to emerge. Work slows. Headcount that made sense when Karen Dunn was running a booming litigation practice doesn’t make sense anymore.
That’s the recipe for a stealth layoff.
If this has happened to you at Paul, Weiss — or anywhere else — please reach out. You can email us (tips@abovethelaw.com) or text us (646-820-8477). Even if we are unable to verify the move, we are listening.
If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
The post First The Litigation Partners Left Paul, Weiss. Now Associates Are Being Pushed Out. appeared first on Above the Law.
The top Biglaw recession indicator, stealth layoffs, may have arrived! Paul, Weiss has parted ways with an unknown number of associates and multiple insiders describe the move as an instance of stealth layoffs in the firm’s litigation department. The accounts from those reportedly let go should sound awfully familiar to anyone who’s been following this beat.
For the uninitiated: stealth layoffs are a Biglaw specialty. Rather than announce economically motivated headcount reductions, firms quietly push associates out the door using performance reviews as cover — reviews that, coincidentally, turn suddenly negative right when business slows down. The associates let go frequently have no prior history of negative feedback. It’s a toxic business practice placing the blame on the attorneys themselves, rather than acknowledging the economic reality driving the decision.
On Reddit, the Paul, Weiss tipsters are unambiguous about what’s happening:
“To those saying it’s unsubstantiated: it happened to me. Since the firm doesn’t exactly announce you’ve been let go, it’s hard to know how many people this has affected. But the other comment here saying that they do it by giving you bogus negative performance reviews that are uncorroborated by the actual teams you work with is exactly what happened to me. When I asked what the actual problem with my performance was, all I got was the vaguest ‘feedback’ ever about attention to detail or something like that (mind you, I had only ever gotten positive feedback, and never had any complaints before about my attention to detail). I immediately clocked that the firm was making up a performance reason for what is essentially a layoff due to persistent slowness in the litigation dept. This suggested to me that this was probably happening across the department rather than anything to do with me.”
A second source echoes this assessment:
“Laid off PW assoc here — can confirm. They’re doing it as bogus performance-based sendoffs — bogus because most affected folks are getting negative feedback in the annual review that none of the individual teams are corroborating. And it’s happened to many of us. The party line at P,W has consistently been ‘oh we would never do layoffs. Didn’t do it during the 2008 recession, didn’t do it during the 2022 Biglaw layoffs, and certainly not now.’ But I’ve learned the hard way that they do plenty of stealth layoffs.”
That boast — that Paul, Weiss doesn’t do layoffs, not even during downturns — is a particularly bitter pill, because it’s been used to burnish the firm’s reputation as a good place to work. And now, multiple associates say they’ve been handed suddenly invented performance problems by a firm that is manifestly dealing with something much bigger than their attention to detail.
We reached out to Paul, Weiss for comment, and a spokesperson provided the following statement: “There were no layoffs. These were performance-based decisions based on the review process we conduct every year.”
That response is, word for word, the stealth layoff script. Repackaging economic cuts as performance decisions, all while insisting no layoffs occurred, is how a stealth layoff works. It’s of course possible for a firm to part ways with an associate for “performance-based” reasons. But the language of the firm statement — speaking in plurals — suggests a broader swath than terminating a perpetual underperformer. Add in insider accounts describing associates with clean records, whose teams never flagged a problem, and suddenly negative annual reviews, and everything sure sounds like a stealth layoff.
While most stealth layoffs are nakedly cynical, some firms might genuinely delude themselves into thinking they’re just making performance cuts. Except, if the firm is honest with itself, the associates involved never did anything that would merit termination until the business environment changed. Tiny shortcomings, the natural byproduct of a lawyer-in-training, get magnified into unforgivable sins — for the first time in their whole career — just as the firm needs to cut headcount.
To understand why the litigation department would be slow right now, you have to understand what has happened to Paul, Weiss over the past year. In March 2025, the firm became the first — and most infamous — Biglaw shop to cut a deal with the Trump administration, surrendering $40 million in pro bono services and its DEI programs to get out from under an executive order targeting the firm. The fallout, which we’ve documented extensively, has been severe — and nowhere more than in litigation.
Litigation co-chair Karen Dunn, along with partners Bill Isaacson, Jeannie Rhee, and Jessica Phillips, bolted to start their own boutique free from the constraints of the Trump deal. Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams departed for Jenner & Block — a firm actually fighting the executive orders in court. Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson retired after 40 years at the firm. And most recently, Kannon Shanmugam — one of the most accomplished Supreme Court advocates in private practice — left for Davis Polk.
That’s a bunch of litigation talent walking out the door. And when the partners leave, the work tends to follow. Which means fewer matters to staff, fewer hours to bill, and a department carrying more associates than it now has work to sustain. The associates absorbing that slowdown aren’t the ones who made the decisions that caused it, but they will be the ones paying the price.
Which brings us back to those suddenly vague performance reviews.
The structural reality at Paul, Weiss makes all of this entirely predictable. New chair Scott Barshay — an M&A heavyweight who was reportedly a major internal champion of the Trump deal — has been steadily remaking the firm in a transactional image. Associate staffing is now more tightly controlled. The firm’s identity has shifted from “litigation powerhouse with a conscience” to “M&A juggernaut with a carefully managed personality.” As a former Paul, Weiss attorney told the American Lawyer when Barshay took the reins: “The litigators have never been led by a corporate partner. Will the litigation team have an issue with the firm becoming really a corporate shop with a litigation arm, rather than the other way?”
A litigation department hemorrhaging partner talent, led by a firm chair whose future seems transactional, is exactly the environment where you’d expect stealth layoffs to emerge. Work slows. Headcount that made sense when Karen Dunn was running a booming litigation practice doesn’t make sense anymore.
That’s the recipe for a stealth layoff.
If this has happened to you at Paul, Weiss — or anywhere else — please reach out. You can email us ([email protected]) or text us (646-820-8477). Even if we are unable to verify the move, we are listening.
If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1
